Thursday, November 6, 2008

General Notes

I haven't had many new thoughts lately about D&D; the other parts of my life have intervened. I won't be running until November 15, having only just changed residences and thus not being in possession of enough space to even set up a couple of tables until this weekend. I'm told that I'll be in a position to run seven players, as another is ready to audit a few sessions to see if she likes it. If she does, it would mean that the number of women in my campaign actively outnumbers the number of men. I don't know what this means.

It seems odd to me that, since I am fairly combat heavy in my campaigns, that I usually do well with women interested in playing the game. I don't find that women run particularly different from the men; or that they feel affronted. But that may be because I'm not, as many DMs I've found in the past, a hopeless prude who must build every campaign around the manliness of their players and the need to rescue princesses. Having a loose campaign as regards to the activities of the players, the women are free to explore their own desires to swing weapons and crush opponents. While the men do involve themselves in quite a few pissing contests, it is interesting to watch the women threaten to team together to teach them a lesson if they don't shut up.

I'll have to write more about that some time.

I am actively searching for various tokens to denote food, money, arrows, torches, flasks of oil and so on, and I have several people looking for good deals in this regard. First off, for those who might be considering getting some glass beads, I would recommend looking in pet stores which cater to fish before seeking them out from Walmart or educational sources. So far I have this tip second-hand...but I suspect that pet stores might have more to offer than I had at first considered. If anyone else has any tips, don't hesitate to bring them up.

Anyway, that's all I have time for. I'm working on National Novel Writing Month, 50,000 words in 30 days, which will soak up a lot of hours over the next four weeks. I'm working off a premise suggested by Nicola Tesla, about the transmission of electricity through the air, like radio or television waves. I think I have the science problems wrapped up, I have a beginning and an end, and most of the transitional elements figured out. Wish me luck.

4 comments:

Check out this website for cheap glass gems, acrylic nuggets, etc. They have all different shapes and sizes.

I keep wondering about some other shapes, too. At the hobby store I got some of the pre-cut wooden tiles in the shapes of hearts and dice as various bennie tokens (both spontaneously heal 1-3 hit points and reroll any die, respectively). They weren't too expensive.

For torches, I like the idea of matches. Golf tees can be had relatively cheaply, too.

Nails and screws are cheap, too, but if we used them at the dining table for gaming my wife would have a fit.

Luck. Write your fingers purple. If you haven't seen The Majestic, wait until after you've written your novella.

Check out the Art Supply Store, too. Artco and Michael's (down here in the Lower 48) have a great selection of all kinds of token-ey objects. I have a number of squished cat's eye marbles of varying colors for 'hero points' they were ridiculously inexpensive.

I'm very much looking forward to springing the token idea onto my own players. This is going to be all kinds of fun. I can't wait for the, "But I don't have any more food tokens," pleas.

There used to be a bead store right next to Mona Lisa Art Supplies on 17th ave where one could buy fake plastic jewels in bulk (for making necklaces and such).

China, Mexico, Russia and other countries have very low value coins that pass nicely as copper, silver and gold pieces. You can usually pick up sufficient quantities from a money exchanger for under $40.

There are several mini-bottles at the liquor store which, when striped of their logos and emptied, make lovely little magic potion bottles.

There are places and shops on 17th ave that sell hand crafted paper. Much of it makes for wonderful hand crafted magic scrolls. Carefully burning the edges makes a nice effect.

Staples sells sheets of DIY business cards. You can set up a template in your word processor to print items to the "business cards" such as rations, gold, torches, misc. inventory items.

Additional Content

Began playing Dungeons and Dragons at the age of 15, thirty-eight years ago. I am a steadfast AD&D gamer, but I have made so many changes to the original system that my present model is something of a Frankenstein's monster of role-playing design. I continue to make new changes every day to my game's structure and function.

The Net has described me as a 'mad scientist of RPG blogging,' and a 'Quixotic bastard' ... and also 'the most gonzo - and the grouchiest - old school DM.'

Progress on The Fifth Man

For a period going forward, I will be rewriting the last third of the book as a second draft. I will begin recording that progress also as soon as I pick up the task again. It has been more than two weeks now and I apologize to my backers; but rest assured, I'm sorting myself out and I'll get started again soon.

Progress on the third draft, finalized (will likely be some continuity fixes) stand as follows:

June 29, 2017

Distance yesterday: 0 words

Total distance: 75,490

Chapter in progress: 17

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